With former Greens mayor, Simon Richardson, having mentored both current mayoral candidates Cr Sarah Ndiaye and Mayor Michael Lyon, The Echo sought comment around their support/vote for his role on Northern Rivers Planning Panel (NRPP).
NSW Planning panels are consent authorities for large DAs across the state, overriding councils’ authority.
As previously reported, Richardson was appointed as NRPP panellist by councillors, and voted for the contentious Wallum Estate in Brunswick Heads without a site visit or attending meetings.
And given he has had to recuse himself from voting on other large projects owing to his previous position as mayor, there appears little evidence that the community is getting value for money for the role.
By contrast, another panel candidate, Bruce Clarke, was unsuccessful, despite both a legal background and extensive experience with planning.
The Echo asked both mayoral candidates: ‘Do you still support Richardson’s position on the panel?’
Mayor Michael Lyon said, ‘I agreed with Simon’s appointment, and yes, I support him given his experience and knowledge of our community. The Wallum development had a state government approved concept plan in 2013, which when combined with the s.34A certificate issued by the planning minister, put the writing on the wall’.
‘The reduction in footprint from 18ha to 12ha approved by the NRPP in May last year relative to the concept plan was arguably about as much as could have been hoped for. The developer always had the option to insist on the larger footprint of the concept plan from 2013 and go to court to enforce that plan’.
Cr Sarah Ndiaye told The Echo she has ‘a lot of respect for Simon, but I did not agree with Simon’s vote’.
She said, ‘He brings invaluable experience to the role. Of course, I was disappointed that he did not visit the site for such a crucial project. We all should have had a comprehensive site visit, with planners and ecologists, to understand the complexity of the site’.
‘The reports we saw were inadequate to make a properly informed decision. I don’t know exactly what information was provided to the panel members. It’s one thing to read a collection of reports and another to walk around the circumference of an ancient, pre-colonial scribbly gum, listening to the frogs, watching Glossy Black Cockatoos feeding nearby in a place teeming with life and decide to cut it down, and suffocate the site with fill.
Unanimous vote
‘The vote of the [planning] panel was unanimous, so his dissenting vote would not have made a difference, but I believe maybe his participation in an onsite visit would have.
‘Regarding conflict of interest, we have an alternate representative in David Brown, so if there is a perceived conflict, it’s not so much of a problem. If you don’t participate, you don’t get paid, so there would be no financial loss’.
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